UPDATE: Matt Cooke has been suspended for the remainder of the regular season and the first round of the playoffs. There’s 10 games remaining in the season for the Penguins, and anywhere between four and seven games in the 1st round (most likely against the Lightning).
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Sun Tzu. Niccolo Machiavelli. Marquis de Sade. Matt Cooke. What do all this people have in common? They’ve all gotten nasty reputations for being bloodthirsty. At least Sun Tzu and Machiavelli had a practical purpose to their madness. So did the Marquis, with his political discourses. But Cooke is just an antichrist without all the power. On Sunday, he elbowed Rangers’ defenseman Ryan McDonagh in the face, and knocked him into the boards (video below). That’s the very definition of the hits that the NHL wants to eliminate. As Machiavelli put it,

“You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, one with laws, the other with force: the first one is proper to man, the second to beasts.”

That really says it all about Matt Cooke, doesn’t it? Others follow the rules and fight within the five minute major context. Matt Cooke sneaks up behind you and deliberately tries to end your career. That’s how it went with Marc Savard, who should really retire for his own safety at this point.

Matt Cooke has been suspended three times in as many years, faces an in-person hearing Monday afternoon in Toronto for the recent hit. The only way he avoids a hefty suspension for this one is if the hit reminds Colin Campbell of Cooke’s crippling of that “little fake artist.”

Really, if you want to stop Cooke, ban him from the NHL all together. Start introducing jail time into the equation. Serious incentives to not end peoples’ careers is the only way Cooke will be contained, if not ending his career first.